Friday, May 29, 2015

Thanks
to Tania at Little Vintage Cottage I had this idea in my head of a chair I wanted
to put on my front porch. She'd inspired
me to do this project and add a little whimsy to our humble abode. Not too big, our porch is rather small, but a
nice inviting place to sit in and admire our hard work, transforming our lovely
little yard, from time to time.

So
a couple of weeks ago when I stopped into a thrift store and found this lone
sturdy oak kitchen chair for $7.99 I knew it would be perfect for what I had
envisioned. My youngest was with me at
the time and the look on her face when I got all excited about this chair told
me she really thought I'd just lost another one of my marbles. In spite of her reservations we left the
store with it and I was tickled.

I
finally got a chance to work on it last week in between rainstorms. I grabbed a can of gloss black interior/exterior
spray paint I bought for $1.99 and my handy dandy well used dollar store shower
curtain and got to work. First I used my
power sander and some sandpaper to remove the finish. It was the original finish and came off pretty
easily. I took the paper off the sander
and used it to sand the spots by hand I couldn't reach with the tool.

Glamour shot!

I only had about a 20 minute window of sunshine to work in
with black clouds on the horizon.

I
vacuumed it clean and then wiped it all down with a damp cloth. On the drop cloth I painted the bottom side
first. Then set it upright and painted
the rest. Once dry to the touch I put it
in the garage and let it sit and dry thoroughly for 24 hours.

The next day, while
it rained once again, I sat in the garage and stapled a new seat covering to
it. I decided to use a fun print vinyl
table cloth I found on sale at Fred Meyer for $2.99 to cover it so it would be
more moisture resistant. I have plenty
of fabric left to recover it later down the road when it wears out too.

Thursday, May 28, 2015

I
keep our everyday dishes and glassware pretty simple. I have a small kitchen and limited cabinet
space so there isn't a lot of room to keep a ton dishware. I literally have one cabinet in my kitchen
for storing the majority of our dishes.

I
happen to have a real affinity for Corelle and Pyrex. In fact, I collect vintage Pyrex and I use it
too. For our everyday dishes I decided
several years ago to go with the basic frost white Corelle. I started out buying a box of four place
settings - dinner plate, bread plate, bowl and coffee mug. A few months later I bought a second box so
I'd have eight place settings, enough for entertaining.

I've
added eight of the square lunch sized plates, a serving platter, a serving bowl
and a few other side pieces over the years as I find them on sale. Corelle is lightweight, durable and stacks
together nicely so that I can store a lot of dishes in a small space.

You can get these on Amazon too.

Our
everyday glassware is pretty basic and simple as well. Eight drinking glasses, eight wine glasses
and eight beer glasses. I bought them
all at the dollar store in batches. They
are all restaurant quality and I like that they are a thicker, more durable
glass. Our beer glasses pull double duty
for floats, Italian sodas and milkshakes too.

A
glass rack under our cabinet stores our wine glasses and I keep the beer
glasses on a shelf in the dining room. I
also keep a few acrylic and plastic tumblers handy for picnics and outdoor use.

All of my colorful cloth napkins never clash.

I
really like that I can change up our table settings with different colored
placemats, tablecloths and cloth napkins using our plain dishes. They also work well with our special dishes
we brought back from China and the colored Corelle and Pyrex pieces I've collected. I virtually have not limits when it comes to
setting a decorative table.

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

My big stock up
item was boneless skinless chicken breast and I got that on sale at Albertson's
for $1.66 a pound. I ended up buying
twenty pounds, dividing it up into portions sized for our family and freezing
them.

Our nonfood items
came in a bit over at $28.59 as I stocked up on cat food, laundry detergent and
tissues that were on sale at super low prices.
I also used coupons on the detergent which save me an extra $2.00.

Here is the list of
all the food items I bought last month.
The items in red are my stock up
items:

Groceries

$$$

Fish fillets

5.98

Sale/Coupon

Lemon juice

1.00

Dollar Store

Pepperoni (2)

2.00

Dollar Store

Bagels (2)

1.98

Markdown

Butter (4)

7.52

Store Coupon

Parmesan

0.99

Store Coupon

Eggs - 1 doz. (2)

3.18

Eggs - 1 doz.

FREE

Store Coupon

Cheese - 5#

10.48

Sale

Chicken breasts - 20#

33.85

Sale

Milk - 1 gal. (2)

3.76

Store Coupon

Gelatin (3)

1.50

Markdown

Lettuce (2)

1.98

Sale

Mixed veg.

1.99

Sale

Tomatoes

1.25

Sale

Hotdog buns

0.88

Sale

Hamburger buns

0.88

Sale

Tortillas (6)

4.50

Sale

Cereal bars (2)

1.56

Store Coupon

Spinach

1.99

Cole slaw mix (2)

1.96

Broccoli

1.63

Sale

Cauliflower

2.40

Sale

Garlic bulb

0.34

Celery

0.69

Sale

Mushrooms

1.26

Sale

Apples

1.39

Sale

Carrots - 2#

1.99

Sale

Cucumber

0.59

Sale

Cereal (2)

2.76

Sale/Coupon

Milk - 1 gal. (2)

3.76

Store Coupon

Cheese

0.99

Store Coupon/Coupon

Strawberries (2)

3.76

Sale

Store Promotion Coupon

(5.00)

Store Coupon

Butter (3)

5.00

Store Coupon

Cereal (2)

1.68

Sale/Coupon

Cereal (2)

2.18

Sale/Coupon

Total

$ 114.65

$114.65 ÷
31 days ÷3 people = $1.23 per person per day!

$4.00!! About a year supply for us!

How did you save money on
groceries this month? Were you able to
find some good sales and stock up on anything?

Tuesday, May 26, 2015

I was blessed with a nasty and tenacious migraine that dogged me
throughout the week alternating between both sides of my head so my thrifty
moves were pretty much hit and miss. I
got a brief reprieve on Wednesday and then it was back with a vengeance on Thursday. It's gone now, thankfully. Do any of you get migraines? If so, I totally feel for you. No fun!

It rained every single day last week so I didn't have to water
anything except the pots on the porch.

A friend of mine gave me a nice stack of coupons she saved for me
out of her Sunday paper.

I went to the feed store and picked up a 50# bag of layer pellets
for the chickens.

I kept grocery shopping to a minimum. My goal was to pay rock bottom prices for
everything I bought and only get what I needed.
We were out of mayonnaise and on our last jar so it was perfect timing
that both Fred Meyer and Albertson's had it on sale. I had three 50¢ coupons too so I bought three
jars. I also bought two bottles of salad
dressing for 99¢ each, hotdogs for 99¢, buns for 88¢, a gallon of milk $1.99, a
container of sour cream $1.25 less a 40¢ coupon, a container of parmesan for
$1.99 less a 40¢ coupon and three boxes of Popsicle treats on sale for 10/$10
and I had a coupon for $3.00 off three which made them free.

Sunday I had ordered the dresser for my bedroom off of eBay with
free shipping. Our final piece of
furniture! It arrived on Thursday and my girls helped me get it put together
and set it in place. Saturday morning I
emptied out the plastic bins and filled it up with all of my fabrics.

I brought some shelves and brackets in from the garage and
reinstalled them on the wall above my sewing table. I'll post more about this project a little
later.

The girls and I watched several Martin Yan chinese cooking shows
on Youtube for free. We also watched two
movies on Amazon with our Prime membership.

I cleared out the older veggies in our crisper drawer and ended up
making our own version of Mongolian BBQ.
It was really good.

Monday, May 25, 2015

Friday, May 22, 2015

One thing Boise boasts is some pretty spectacular parks. On Sunday we got a break in the weather so we
headed out for some fresh air and exercise to Kathryn Albertson Park. It is a wildlife preserve with winding paths
and plenty to see and experience. While
there we were treated to dozens of varieties of birds, ducks, geese, fish,
water turtles, deer and even a couple of snakes. I totally could have done without the snakes.

Look turkeys! Just kidding.

The water is a little murky from all the rain we've been having.

See the deer?

Look at the baby!

It was a gorgeous day.

World's largest Ponderosa pine

Water turtles.

12 babies!

And then we met up with the large goose family again as we were leaving.

Just as we were wrapping it up the raindrops began to fall once again. Perfect timing.

I can't tell you how nice it was to get outdoors and just wander
for awhile. Lots of fresh air. The views were spectacular
and it is so much fun to get to commune with nature a little bit. Those goslings are so stinking cute too.

Thursday, May 21, 2015

There is nothing too terribly exciting about doing laundry, but I
actually enjoy doing it. My goal is
always to do it as simply, efficiently and inexpensively as possible. I even tried making my own laundry detergent
at one time but found our clothing wasn't getting as clean as I liked and they
had begun to develop an odor. Not cool.

A few years ago when our mismatched washer and dryer gave up the
ghost I splurged and purchased a front loading high efficiency matched set from
Home Depot. I had saved up for them in
anticipation of ours getting older but when I was offered 12 months no interest
I went that route and just incorporated the payments into our monthly budget
and kept our savings intact.

I find with these units I am able to get our laundry done much
easier and faster. We use less water
doing our laundry and the dryer works faster as well because the washer does a
fabulous job extracting water in the final spin cycle. I also use less laundry soap which has made
continuing to purchase our detergent more affordable.

As a family of three we can usually get by quite well washing two
loads on Sunday and a midweek load on Wednesday evening. The washer holds a lot of clothes and the
dryer as well. The girls help with the
folding and I am quick to get the clothes out of the dryer right away to avoid
wrinkles. I hate to iron.

I've lately been toying with the idea of tinkering with my
homemade laundry detergent recipe to see if I can make it better. I've also thought about using both homemade
and store bought and alternating them to see if I have better results. Lately, with sales prices and coupons, I've
managed to buy detergent so inexpensively that I don't know if it would be cost
effective or not and therefore worth the effort.

I currently use liquid detergent, liquid fabric softener as well
as dryer sheets, occasionally bleach and Spray & Wash when needed. I always buy my supplies on sale and with
coupons whenever I can. I buy the dryer
sheets at the dollar store. When the
weather is nice we like to hang our things outside as often as possible so I
use the liquid fabric softener the most.
I also reuse my dryer sheets and find I can get two to three loads dry
per sheet which is great because in the winter I use both liquid fabric
softener and the dryer sheets to control static.

One huge thing that has helped us tremendously in simplifying our
laundry process is that we own so much less stuff that needs to be
laundered. Fewer clothes, less bedding, less
to wash. It really is that simple. Love it!

Cream together butter and shortening.
Add sugar and molasses and combine well.
Add eggs, vanilla, soda and salt.
Stir until thoroughly blended.
Add walnuts and stir. Add flours
and work until it forms a stiff dough.
Roll dough into 1 inch balls and place on lightly oiled baking
sheet. Flatten each ball with the flat
bottom of a glass. Bake at 350° about 7
minutes. Remove from oven and allow to
cool for a few minutes before transferring cookies to a cooling rack. Store in an airtight container. Makes approximately 3 1/2 dozen cookies.

Tuesday, May 19, 2015

I am getting super excited and hopeful. It appears that our hard work is beginning to
show that all of our efforts have not been in vain. For one thing our little patch of lawn is a
lawn once again. After several days
cleaning up the yard in February you may recall that we had raked and prepared
all of the dead spots (there was more dead than alive) and then we all three hand
sprinkled grass seed and covered it with pine shavings. Our hope was to get an early enough start to
take advantage of the spring rains and cooler temperatures and improve our
chances of success. The dead spots we
worked on are now filled with grass and it looks lovely. I bought more grass seed a couple weeks ago
and we are working on stage 2 which is the other side of the lawn. It isn't as bad as the part we've already
worked on.

This is what we started with.

We have also been working on cleaning up the overgrown weed
infested flowerbeds and have been delighted to see that some of our perennials
have come back to us this spring. In the
fall we weren't certain what had survived and what hadn't. I bought annuals to fill in the gaps as well
as a couple of new hostas to add in. The
girls got me some pinks and carnations for Mother's Day.

This is the first flowerbed we did.

Our poor backyard and deck was pretty much the landfill. Our tenants had used it to store trash, not
sure why since I paid for trash service.
Unfortunately we weren't able to get to the backyard before the first
snowfall so that mess wintered over. An
early spring allowed us to finally get back there and over a period of two
weeks we worked diligently to get it all cleaned up back there, make repairs
and by the end of March we were able to get some semblance of order in place.

At the end of February we also brought home four chicks and
despite a rough start and the addition of two new chicks we have now
established a flock of hens. They lived
in the house with us for two months and then we moved them into the coop at the
first of May. They love it out there and
are a happy flock of birds. Within the
next few months we should see some egg production.

We planted our raised garden beds.
In March we used compost to amend all of the soil. In April we planted strawberry starts I
ordered from a strawberry farm in Oregon.
I ordered 10 starts, they sent 12, our naughty squirreled stole one and
hopped over the fence with it and the remaining 11 took just fine and are
growing well. We even have a few
strawberries already. I'll fill in the
12th spot once we produce a jumper.

Pears

We started tomatoes and cucumbers from seed and transplanted them
into the garden. We've also planted
carrots, beets, radishes, spring onions, bell peppers and jalapeno peppers,
yellow squash, watermelon, cantaloupe and sugar pumpkins. We still plan to clear more space and plant
more seeds. The peppers we bought as
plants from the feed store and we already have two peppers growing on
them. The radishes, beets, and onions
are coming up as well.

We added a lettuce bed in front of one of the raised beds and
planted two rows of seeds which are already coming up. We hope to keep us and our chickens in
lettuce throughout the summer. I also
want to plant an herb garden.

At the end of April I bought blueberry bushes and a pot of
raspberry starts which I was able to divide into three separate plants. I'm not sure I'm happy with where I've put
them so I'll probably be moving them. I
planted the two blueberry bushes on each side of the step leading up to the
deck. They are happy with their new
location and so am I. They are already
producing berries.

Blueberry bush

Our fruit trees have been sprayed with organic pesticide in hopes
of keeping them bug free this year. Our
pear tree is loaded with fruit. Our
apple tree, which was not healthy, received a big pruning a couple years ago in
an attempt to save it. It looks really
good this year and we have apples on it now.
If we can keep the pests and squirrels at bay we may just get some fruit
this year.

Apples

There is still work to be done, but the three of us girls are
certainly up for it. And the excitement
of seeing food growing just adds to our momentum. There is a great sense of satisfaction in a
little sustainability.